Banana Sunday

by Root Nibot, Colleen Coover (Illustrator)

Kirby Steinberg is having a bit of trouble fitting into her new school. Sure, there's the usual interest/antagonism associated with being from "somewhere else," but this time the new kid also happens to be the guardian for three talking monkeys. Chuck, the professorial orangutan. Knobby the love-stricken spider monkey. Go-Go, the befuddled golden gorilla. These monkeys have learned to speak thanks to the scientific processes of Kirby's father. Or have they? What's their real story? That's what Nickels—Kirby's new best friend and unfortunately dedicated school reporter—would like to discover. Can Kirby find time to develop a relationship with Martin, the dashing nerd? Steer clear of Skye, the high school's # 1 pocket of arrogance? Keep the three simians from causing untold catastrophes? And, above all, will Kirby be able to hide the real origin of these three monkeys from Nickels? Oh, probably not.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Young Adult, Fantasy, Humor, Fiction, Childrens

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

The husband and wife team's first collaboration. Unfortunately it doesn't have the same wit or charm as their Bandette collaborations. I found this bland and banal. The explanation for why the monkeys could talk was just plain dumb. I'm glad Tobin and Coover quickly got a lot better with their storytelling as this was just a saccharine sweet disappointment.

[McKinlay · Rating 2 out of 5]

*I received an ARC from Oni Press at ALA, but I also received a DRC off of netgalley. This does not affect my review.*

[2.5 stars]

I asked Oni Press for queer comics and they gave me this. It is not queer.

But anyway, that aside, this was just okay. There were definitely some cute moments, I especially liked Go Go. But there was instalove, and i seriously hate when there's a mean girl for literally no reason. Plus it's kind of creepy to see a monkey constantly hitting on human girls. But maybe that's just me.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is cute enough. A typical high school story, with the New Girl &trademark; and the Mean Girl &trademark;, and the Cute Boy&trademark;.

The only thing different is three odd talking primates, that hang out with Kirby.




The primates are silly, and Go-Go is my favorite, but that isnt' enough to make this book special. If you like middle-school romance, with monkeys, this could be the book for you. Otherwise, it is a skip.

#BananaSunday #NetGalley

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

[Theediscerning · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seriously? We've gone from "I Was the Cat" to this? A teen-friendly gonzo comic with a girl and the world's smallest gorilla and two other simian things, one of which is randy for inter-species sex? As a kind of bullying metaphor come story of how some people just won't be forced to fit in? Eesh. One and a half stars.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit weird. Kirby is a teenagers that comes to a new school... along with her three monkeys. Si, como lo oyen. This comic deals with Kirby fitting in the ruthless high school environment, she quickly makes a friend, Nickels, but she is also the reporter of the high school newspaper and she is determined to find out about where does the monkeys come from. She also attracts the attention of a young handsome boy and a bitchy high school prom queen. And all this in just the spam of one week.
The monkeys are definitely the most fun part of the comic: they have different personalities and the way they manages to get in trouble and not leave poor Kirby a single moment of peace is funny.
But nothing really important happens, there is really nothing at stake and after a while it gets tiring that the story doesn't really have a purpose.
Kirby supposedly has trouble fitting in because everyone is judging her but c'mon! she makes a friend right away and has a boy pining for her in five pages. I wish I had it as easy as Kirby in bloody high school.

Botton line, I wouldn't recommend this comic unless you are an avid monkey fan.

P.S.: Was it really so hard not to colour the comic?

[Kasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun and light comic. A bit outdated - but Go-Go is the cutest character

[Crystal Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute. I had told my husband that I would like to start reading graphic novels and he brought this home for me. I love monkeys so this was a great place for me to start. One of the monkeys (perhaps it was Go-Go) had a saying that he said over and over again. I repeated it for quite awhile and now for the life of me I can't remember it. Anyways I really enjoyed this graphic novel so if anyone can recommend another one based on this I would love to hear about it!

[Tom Shapira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and charming; even early on Coover's art is top-notch (some great physical comedy) and it's one of these books that's so relentlessly positive it's hard not to to like it.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fluffy and cute, though a little too cute for my taste. A new high-school student is accompanied by three talking monkeys (actually one monkey, two apes) created by her scientist father. But is that really their origin? How can the gorilla get hit by a car and get up? What's actually going on? I think the gorilla was my favorite, mostly because he reminds me of one of our dogs.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 3 out of 5]

Root is Paul Tobin

Annoyingly nerdy but I can't avoid Coover's art.

Geniuses don't go by "Chuck"- he would demand to be known as Charles.

Points for knowing how science community was so against the concept of love especially with monkeys via Harry Harlow thus obnoxious-intelligence monkey calls it affection- that's produced by chemical imbalance.

[Marianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't even know if I liked this or not. It was weird. I definitely did not like the male love interest, I definitely liked the female bestie / intrepid reporter Nickels, and ... yeah. I just don't know.

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kirby and her 3 primates are starting at a new school (yes you read that right!) Her father has been researching them and has taught them to speak. She soon befriends "Prince Charming" and Nickel, a reporter on the school newspaper. As she negotiates the perils of a new school such as finding her locker and upsetting the popular kids just by existing, she also has to deal with a romantic spider monkey, studious orangutan and an overprotective gorilla who seem intent on exposing any secrets that they might be hiding. Will she get through the week with her new friendships in tact?

I was interested in this book because of the title and bright cover. It was also one of my first forays into graphic novels and as quite a short one it was a good place to start. In the end, it turned out not to be my kind of story really.

I felt that it would have been nice for the characters of the primates to be made more of, especially the orangutan who spent much of the story with his nose stuck in a book. I also felt the ending of the story was a little rushed. With the whole story taking just a week, it didn't take long for a fledgling romance to begin or Kirby to work out how to stand up to the popular kids, or for the big reveal to happen.

It was quite a fun idea, with links to a well-known visual maxim, and the basics of a story behind where they could have come from.

The pictures were bright and eyecatching and I can imagine recommending this book to a child who didn't have an interest in long novels but might be tempted by a colourful comic type book.

Many thanks to the publishers for giving me access to an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

[Paul Franco · Rating 4 out of 5]

A teenage girl takes her three talking simians, given IQ boosts by her mad scientist father, to high school with her. Hilarity ensues for most but not all.
I liked Kirby from the first panel; the other main primates are a mixed back. One has a massive ego, another thinks only of mating (with human high school girls), and the third is even more Neanderthal than the students. Kirby makes a BFF who right away says she can’t be trusted, while a guy gives her a concussion with his locker door and then asks her out. And of course there’s a mean alpha, though this one is redheaded instead of blonde.
“For whom the bell does clique.” Nice to see the orangutan can talk about something other than physics.
“Donuts are friends!” “Ducks are good poopers.” “Butterflies don’t fart.” Go-Go just might be the wisest of all.
A lot of the humor is of the two-people-having-different-conversations variety, though I do agree with Chuck about Atlantis. Add his sarcasm and he’s me.
So all in all, a pretty strange read, but funny and heartwarming too. Glad I read it. And remember, only good gorillas are ticklish. . .

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Banana Sunday' by Paul Toin and Colleen Coover with art by Rian Sygh is a fun story about a normal young woman and her three extraordinary primates.

Kirby Steinberg is going to a new school and she announces it on a Sunday. The reason she does is because of her three talking primates. Chuck is an orangutan and whip-smart. Knobby is a spider-monkey who is in love with love thanks to the love poems he has read. Go-Go the gorilla is small, kind of simple, and indestructible.

Kirby meets a new friend, a reporter named Nickels who wants to know the story behind Kirby's friends. Kirby also makes a new enemy in Skye, the school snob who is out to smear Kirby's name. Can Kirby survive her first week at her new school?

It's an early collaboration from Tobin and Coover, and it's not as good as others. It's still kind of fun, as long as you don't scratch the surface too much. If you do, there are things that don't seem to work so well. I liked the art too. It's bright and the lines are clean.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Oni Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

[Andreea · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was sent a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I rarely give such a low ratings to books, but Banana Sunday looks like a lot of fun from the cover and when you year it is made by Eisner Award winner, you expectations are even higher, right? And the book did not deliver...

I think the story might not be as bad - it is not something spectacular, it could really be a simple and fun ok story, however I felt like the comic book format was not the best for it. The art doesn't pop up like it does on the cover, the art is really bland and the same and there is nothing that attracted me... well, the monkeys were funny.

The panels are also simple and they are not being part of the story, they are a simple layout that the authors simply filled in, and for the comic format I think like the panels should be an active part of it. And the dialogue is too long and pointless...

Maybe it simply wasn't for me and someone else might enjoy, but in my opinion there are better comics out there.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light and fluffy book with adorable Colleen Coover art, this comic is a perfect option for those times when you need a quick infusion of cute. Writer Paul Tobin (under the nom de plume Root Nibot) tells a pretty typical tale of a teenage girl, Kirby Steinberg, adjusting to a new school — complete with love interest, outsider best friend, and school bully — with a small twist: joining Kirby are her three pet talking monkeys.

Tobin and Coover have a lot of fun with the monkeys, getting them into whimsical mischief and teasing out the mystery of what, exactly, these talking monkeys really are. And there's no CW-y angst to Kirby's story; any drama that comes from being the new kid is mitigated with a smile and a playful narrative. All that is charming, but the lack of narrative heft made it easy to read a few pages of this book and then put it aside for days (weeks) at a time without feeling pulled back to it.

[Phobean · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute, "fluffy" sort of comic. Adorable art, snappy dialogue, not much of a plot. I did wonder why almost every single girl in the book was wearing a skirt . . . and whether the authors were aware that, from the outset of the story, they were creating sexual tension between the protagonist and her best girl friend. (I get the feeling the author wasn't aware of this.) Also, the illustrator could have put more effort into making Nickles look less white, more Japanese -particularly because s/he did such a great job including kids of many and varied races in the background/large group pictures. Perhaps this graphic novel was created for a young, female, Christian audience? If that is true, it hit its mark.

[Alex Sarll]

Tobin and Coover's pre-Bandette collaboration starts with that old standard, the new transfer student at school. Except this one is accompanied by three talking primates. The humans are fine, though I don't get why Kirby goes for faintly creepy Martin when cute reporter Nickels is clearly interested. But obviously the simians are the real stars. An irascible, mischievous genius chimp; an amorous spider monkey; best of all, the cute gorilla who just wants to sleep, eat bananas and make friends with butterflies, unless someone threatens his person, at which point it becomes apparent quite how protective, and indestructible, he really is. I identify deeply with all of them. OK, maybe it's not quite so perfectly charming as Bandette, but it isn't far off.

(Netgalley ARC)

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, funny, and quick! This would be a perfect story for a middle school aged kid. Maybe 13 or 14+. Go-go is adorable, and the book has two strong female leads. I loved the cute art, this is actually 4 comic books made into one book, so it reads like a comic and is very fun! However, it kind of lacks in story.. It's very bubblegum and I agree with some other reviewers that I thought there was sexual tension between the girls in the beginning. The story could have been much deeper. The mommies are adorable!

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I lost my mind when I seen this on NetGalley because I am a HUGE fan of Paul Tobin's graphic novel series called Bandette. However, I am sad to say that I was a little disappointed in this one. The characters were likable enough, and the monkeys were cute, but I just didnt fall in love with the story the way I did with Bandette. I will say that the artwork was stellar as always, but I'll have to give this one a pass, as the story just did not excite me in the least.

A huge thank you to NetGalley for sending me a digital copy of these book previews in exchange for an honest review.

[C.S. O'Leary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man I wanted to like this much more than I did, I really did honestly, but nah.

There's no story here, no obstacle or villain our heroine and her monkey pals have to overcome by the end, nothing but a dismal trek through 4 issues that lead up to the big ""reveal"" which will only make you realize how much time you've wasted with this comic.

I will say though that I love Colleen Coovers art style, I think it was ultimately the reason I ever had an inkling of interest in it when I saw an issue in the comic book section of a used bookstore.

1/5

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A enjoyed Bandette by these two creators, so when I came across this at the used bookstore cheap, I thought I would check it out. And it was a fun light quick read. Nothing earth changing, but it was an enjoyable hour with these characters.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming little book for young adults, I guess. A bit heavy handed on the personality stereotypes. I don't believe some blond girl could really get away with stomping somebody for long. I picked it up because I respect Oni books. That's all. I don't actually like monkeys that much. Or teenagers. Or high school drama. Or bananas.

Wow.

Considering all that, I guess it was pretty good after all.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Give this graphic to fans of SMILE and DRAMA. A girl comes to a school as a guest for the year. With her, she brings three talking primates. The school news reporter quickly befriends her and tries to find out how, exactly, these animals became so smart. Another girl tries to destroy her social standing because she's jealous of the attention the "monkey girl" is getting. And there's a love interest, too.

Quick, fun, fluffy read for middle school and up.

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a graphic novel. The best thing about it is that the monkeys are really cute and they are in every frame, sometimes just in the background, posing or doing things that fit into their monkey personalities. I especially liked the lumpy gorilla who says nonsequitors all the time. The story itself is not so interesting.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been looking into a variety of graphic novels that we may add to our curriculum this year. Compared to others, this one lacked an engaging enough story line to actually keep me wanting to continue through the story. The monkeys were a cute distraction, but the human characters were flat and rather cliche.

[Mo · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only good thing about Banana Sunday was Go-Go the gorilla and how cute he was. Other than that, it was just a painful read: bad dialogue, really limited (cliched) characters and a backstory that was just plain stupid.

[Chantal]

This book was amazing. It was very funny. It was about a girl who owned three monkeys and she trying to find a way to tell her friends. They came up with a plan to set up a spy mission. The author and illusrator wwere very creative. You can tell they puted alot of time and effort

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute and entertaining, although the big secret was a little odd. It reminded me of American Born Chinese but the revelation wasn't as big, if that makes any sense. But it was enjoyable to read and I like the drawing style.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just terrifically sweet, silly, unpredictable and spiced, surprisingly, with weird intrigue. I was going to preview this a bit for my daughter, then got sucked in and had to read it all. Perfect for young ladies 9-13.